Sunday, April 29, 2012

The Tulip Fields: 2012

 {Elise, Chloe, Me, Bronte, Luke, Hannah, Autumn, Hillary, Alexa and Lilly}
The tulip fields are definitely a tradition in our family. We go every year. We even went a few times while we lived in Las Vegas. Of course, since Las Vegas is a total desert, that was only when we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa in WA. I remember going in 2008, 3 days before Lilly was born. The past 2 years the Knaupps and the Woodwards joined us. This year we just had half of the Knaupps and Hillary since we went a little later because we all got sick. 
{Autumn}
Part of the tradition is pictures. The rule is you have to take your pictures and be good if you want kettle corn or a ride on the cow train (the latter is more of an incentive for the younger ones). 
{Elise}
{Hannah}
{Me}
{Chloe}
Oh. And before you asked we did forget to take Lilly's individual pictures with the tulips. But she did get lots of pictures taken of her.
{Elise, Luke, and Lilly}
We always go to the tulip fields in Woodburn, OR. Seriously, the best place ever. Especially for little kids. Lots of stuff to do plus they have elephant ears.
So the highlight is the cow train. The girls love it because of the names of the "cows". Lilly and Chloe have little friends and Elise has Elsie, which is pretty darn close. For me the cow train was torture this year. Partly because I was wearing wedges (darn you mom for suggesting I match :) ). The other part was because it was kind of muddy due to recent rain and I got mud on my new jeans, on my new bag, etc. :)

Sunday, April 22, 2012

A sleepover (at a little kid level)

 I love these girls. Since we're all stuck home with HMFD (NOT FUN) for the next week or so I decided I'd have some fun with these two last night. 
We decided to have a sleepover. Just us three. But at a little kid level. At 8:30 they met us in the guest room with their sleeping bags and a backpack with their stuff.
We ate cheese sticks. 
 Everyone put their bags in the corner.
 And then they took advantage over me offering to read them whatever book they want. After they chose a really long one we changed what we were doing. :)
 Then I offered to paint their nails. They kind of had mixed feelings until I showed them what I had. I don't think they had seen the crackle before because Elise seriously freaked out. So I painted 20 little nails. Elise had yellow with crackle and Lilly went for pink with crackle. It is hard to paint little kid nails. They are super tiny! And then the get messed up in about 5 minutes. :)

 Finally the girls got a little tired. We had some ice cream and then it was time for bed (sometime between 9:30 and 10). We laid out our sleeping bags.
 Don't forget I was having a sleepover with a 4 and 6 year old. So their calico critters joined us. 
 Then we took a picture before we switched off the light. BTW Lilly is pretending to sleep. Lilly wanted a story and I was out so Elise told us the story about Annie (they just watched the movie) word for word with the songs. After a while I told her she could summarize it. 2 sentences later she was done. ;) And then we heard about Rapunzel. Here is an excerpt from Elise's story:
Elise: Once upon a time a wicked lady stole a baby princess. She grew up and had super long hair. Then this BOY came and said "alone at last" and she hit him with a frying pan....
I did not know that she knew all those songs that well.
Then Lilly wanted to change places with Elise. Lilly must have thought I was going to run away because she had to be touching me all night long. And she played with my hair all night long. 
 At 6:30 AM Lilly was up yelling, "WAKE UP, IT'S THE MORNING!" I gave her my camera so I could get some sleep. When I retrieved it at 8 she had taken 145 pictures with the help of Elise. I found these treasures among the pictures of the carpet.
 Yesterday I thought Lilly how to take a picture of herself. I think she was practicing. :) The many faces of Lilly.....
Photos courtesy of Lilly :)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The crazy birthday day :)

We went up to WA this weekend. My aunt and her 4 youngest kids were visiting from Maryland, so we kind of had to. Plus it was a pretty special occasion. You see, my great-grandma, grandpa, sister and cousin all share the same birthday and we decided that we had to celebrate it together. 
 It's always fun to go to Grandma's. They kind of live on a farm with chickens, goats, ducks and bees. We kids get to go play in "the forest" or in the awesome tree house my uncle made a few years ago. Add chasing some ducks around and playing with the goats and you've got heaven.
 For my Grandpa's birthday present we all pitched in to weed and re-mulch his blueberry patch. It took a lot longer than I thought it would, but it looked really nice afterwards. Lilly learned that her big sister, who loves mason bees, is scared to death of worms, slugs, snails, etc. I'm a total bee type of girl, but those slimy bugs don't make it onto my list of favorites.
{Grandpa, Cozy, Grandma Cozy, and Lilly}
 We decided to take pictures of the 4 special birthdayers. Cozy wasn't too happy about the whole thing. Probably because she was sick. :) Then Lilly started acting up.
 I absolutely adore Grandma Cozy and Grandpa. Grandma Cozy can seriously crochet and knit anything. She makes these really awesome doll clothes. If you come to our house you can see a lot of her amazing creations. My Grandpa is a retired FBI (awesome!), beekeeper, and is well known for the socks he knits. To sum it all up, I have an amazing family!
{A not so happy Cozette}
Total change of subject. Look what I put on my bulletin board... Coco and I did some art on my last day and the picture made it my most treasured thing in my room. Love my little girl.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

We love our Halmoni and Halaboji {and Justin}

{Halmoni, Hannah, Elise, Lilly}
Halmoni and Halaboji (my Korean grandparents) came up from Vegas with my cousin Justin for Elise's birthday. We had lots of fun with them for the 3 days they were here. We took them to the temple because one of mom's old mia maid's was getting married and we got to see the new visitor's center. It was a beautiful day. A break from all the rain we have been having. Seriously. It was raining until they came. It started again when they left. 
 {Hannah, Halaboji, Me}




{Me and Justin}
 Then we went to Bullwinkle's. My sisters hadn't been there before and they really liked it. We had a lot of fun trying to see who was better at air hockey. BTW I beat my dad. :) We had a really fun time hanging out with family. My favorite part of their visit? Definitely all the Korean food that Halmoni cooked for us. After that chinese food I had for 5 weeks I think I was getting a bit spoiled. :)
{Hannah}
{Lilly and Mom}
{Chloe}
{Justin}

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter time!!

{Chloe and Autumn finding the high and hard eggs}
 We were kind of busy this week, so we didn't get our eggs dyed until this afternoon after church. 15 minutes later our easter egg hunt began. The Woodwards joined us so Jacob, Adam, Emilee and I were the easter bunnies this year. They only missed one. The one that was hidden under a pot by me (I know cheating). :)
{Elise searching for eggs}
{Elise and her loot}

 {Lilly showing off her loot}
 {Hannah}
 We tried to take a group picture. Mom said: Everyone squat! Then we all were balancing on each other and we all were falling together. Pretty awesome. 
{Jacob, Elise, Autumn, Chloe, Lilly, Emilee, Me, Adam, and Hannah}
 Success!! :) 
After our easter egg hunt we had Korean BBQ (YUM). Then we went on a walk and lost each other. Actually Emilee and I were sent back to get Autumn from the house and when we got to the house she and Hannah had already left. So we went and found them. Then we couldn't find the rest of the group. We didn't find each other until we were back to the house. Ended our Easter with brownies and lemon cake. 
This year we mad an Easter Garden. Found it on Pinterest. :) Took it until yesterday for the grass to finally grow. 

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Happy birthday, dear Elise

We celebrated Elise's birthday today. She's six years old. This is my amazing sister who last year was so determined to pay for all of Starfish baby Elise's cleft lip surgery (She ended up with $8 because she only accepted change. We payed for the rest of it). And who is already planning her trip for when she turns 13. She also has 5 different jars in her bedroom with 5 different Starfish baby names on them that she uses to save up her money to help them. 
She was up super early ready to open presents. So I wrapped her's. :) Then we told her she couldn't open presents until after everyone was done with breakfast. She was done in 5 minutes and bugged all of us until we finished. She got some Calico Critters, which are replacing our train set, and some other fun things. Lilly and I went together on a present. Mainly because she didn't have one. We got Elise a dress and Lilly said "Soon it will be mine when you get old!"Yep. The loveliness of hand-me-downs. 
After we pulled Elise and Lilly from the Calico Critters, we went to the zoo. We had great weather, considering what we've had lately, and it only drizzled twice. All the animals were being active or at least in our sight. Except for that stinky Caracal. I swear that it's really just an empty exhibit and they say it's in there so you will waste a good ten minutes looking for it. Dad said he saw it. Whatever. :) We got elephant ears because there was a birthday to celebrate and they were SUPER good. We consumed them pretty quickly. The highlight of the trip would be running into one of Elise's friends and seeing the lion up close at the keeper talk. 
We had a yummy Korean cake tonight. It was super good. Chinese cakes are better, but I really would be fine with any asian cake instead of the ones you get at Fred Meyers. Not a big fan of frosting. 
Elise started this thing with birthday girl privileges. For example: 
Elise: "I think the birthday girl gets seconds on cake" (there was one piece left)
Lilly: "No, the next birthday girl!" (Lilly's birthday is in 9 days)
We opened some of Lilly's presents early because she kind of was really upset last night. Elise got to open a present early and Lilly said "I won't get ANY princess stuff for my birthday like Elise." So Lilly got to open up her Calico Critters today too. And more are coming tomorrow. 
Elise affectionately calls me "my pie maker". My awesome Grandpa taught me how to make pies when I was 11 and when I came home from our trip I started making them like crazy. Elise was my official helper and within 6 months she knew exactly how to make a pie. I just had to help her with the measurements. That was when I made a pie or 3 every week. Now it's more like once a month and I'm still called "pie maker". Lilly had caught on to it too. They often fight over who's pie maker I am. Elise's biggest threat to me: "If you don't do what I want then you can't be my pie maker anymore." 
Happy Birthday girly! I love you!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Amazing what some LOVE can do to a baby

One of the best parts of Starfish is seeing the amazing changes that happen in a year with the children. Of course there are the things like walking and talking but to see a frail baby change into Miss Chubby is amazing. When I volunteered last year we had 2 really small babies. There was 3 month old Grace who only fit the smallest of preemie clothes. When she cried you could barely hear her and it sounded like she was gasping for air. She was a very happy baby and would mainly sleep and stare at you. And she had already been at Starfish for about a month when I came. She was long and skinny. Amanda said she had been a lot smaller when she came. Yeah. I thought that was impossible. 

Know Grace is standing up. She doesn't really want to walk and will cry if her nannies try to help her walk, stand, etc. If she tries to do it though it's a whole different story. If you talk to her she'll give you the big Grace smile. She loves to talk gibberish and sing a song while she does some head banging. She's super smart and when she has her pigtail we all call her Gracie-Lou-Who. :) 

Chris was the other one. He hadn't even been at Starfish for 24 hours when we came. He was 3 months old and newborn was just a little big on him. We called him our "little old man". It was so sad to see him cringe at human touch for the first few days that we were there. Soon he got it and all he wanted was to be held. He was a little jaundice when we got there but after a whole week out in the courtyard he looked a lot better. And he didn't seem that jaundice compared to Sam. By the time we left, a week later, Chris was talking and had already gained a pound. He was sooo cute that if I had to choose another baby besides Mia he would have totally been mine. 

 Now Chris is the king of the walkers. Christy's, one of the assistants,  parents act like his Grandparents and give him all the love he can get. He talks up a storm now and is adorable. He can crawl and he will only walk if his "mama" isn't there. He knows that he will be picked up if he asks. :) He always moving. He's got the cutest smile and his voice is kind of low so it's fun to hear him talk. It took him a couple weeks to get used to me, but by the time I left he was totally fine going to "jie jie".
If I had been told that only 2 babies would make it out of our 6 I would have never put Chris and Grace on the list of survivors. They were so small and fragile. Honestly, Paul and Mia would have been the ones I expected to survive. But things happen and you just have to leave it in God's hands sometimes. The important part, and Starfish's goal, is to love the babies before they can meet their forever families. And those babies got tons of loving in the isolation room.